Buc Report: Student-athletes speak out on importance of Artletics

March 21, 2014 at 7:52 am

By Carolyn Stransky'15

Beloit College student-athletes spend as many as four to five hours each day training and competing in their sports, but as an NCAA Division III institution, athletes are, more importantly, full-time students first, with interests varying from natural sciences, politics, and even fine arts.

This week the athletics department and the Wright Museum of Art opened the sixth annual Artletics exhibition. Because every artist featured in the gallery is a student-athlete here on campus, Artletics was designed as an opportunity to showcase the visually creative side of Buccaneer athletics.

The exhibit was started by Peggy Carl, director of athletics and recreation, after she encountered a similar exhibit her first year at the NCAA Convention. “It’s important because it visually showcases our student-athletes in a completely different light and shows each of them as the multi-dimensional people they all are,” Carl says.

“I am often thought of as a softball player, a student, a friend, but not often enough as an artist,” says Megan Salm’15, who also participated in the 2013 gallery. “Artletics provides me with an opportunity to show off another side of me.”

The sports represented in the 2014 exhibit include basketball, cross country, lacrosse, softball, track & field, and volleyball. The featured mediums vary even more with submissions including photography and oil on canvas to paper mache and paint swatches from Walmart.

“I think this event is extremely important for the campus and for Beloit College Athletics,” says second-time participant Jordyn Ciochon’16. “It shows that we are involved in other things besides athletics, which in turn helps to lessen the gap between student-athletes and non-athletes that is affecting our campus community.”

Salm echoes these sentiments: “This exhibit fits well with our campus, which encourages athletes to partake in a number of activities outside of our sports. It reminds us all that we are not required to stick to the labels that are given to us, and that we should develop a number of interests.”

The show runs through Saturday, March 29 in the South Gallery of the Wright Museum of Art. It is free and open to members of the campus and greater Beloit community.